Optical & Fixed Networks

Bahrain-headquartered technology group Beyon has announced the signing of an agreement to develop Khaleej North, an 800-kilometre submarine cable system that will further expand the planned Al Khaleej Cable, expected to be in service by Q2 2026, by connecting Bahrain with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.

NEC said on Wednesday it has signed a contract with a consortium led by Singtel to build a new intra-Asian subsea cable system linking Singapore and Japan with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan.

Recently, China Telecom has used 800G/λ and C+L technologies to provide high bandwidth for a distributed cluster with 1024 GPUs in the field-deployed network, achieving distributed training of a 175 billion parameters GPT3 (GPT3-175B) model through 120 km field-deployed G.652 fiber.

Saudi Arabia-based telco stc revealed on Sunday that the 2Africa Pearls cable system has landed in Bahrain, next to Seef District, which it says will reinforce the country as a significant ICT hub in the MENA region.

Indonesian tower companies Dayamitra Telekomunikasi (Mitratel) and Tower Bersama are reportedly reviving merger discussions that were abandoned nearly a decade ago, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Omantel and UAE-based du and  announced on Tuesday that they have activated the Oman Emirates Gateway (OEG), a 275-km fibre-optic subsea cable system that will boost connectivity between the UAE and Oman.

TurkNet and SOCAR Fiber announced on Thursday they have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to integrate their fibre optic networks along the TANAP natural gas pipeline to expand TurkNet's fibre business and fortify Turkey’s internet backbone.

Telecom Egypt and subsea supplier SubCom announced on Wednesday they have successfully completed two landings for the Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 6 (SEA-ME-WE-6) subsea cable system on each of Egypt’s two coasts.

The governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) have held talks on the potential construction of three new subsea cables, aiming to meet the Pacific Island nation’s growing demand for digital connectivity.

Could the US and West Africa soon enjoy a dedicated subsea link? It’s early days yet, but this week US lawmakers have passed legislation to at least examine the feasibility of building a subsea cable linking the US to Africa.

Zhuang Dan, Executive Director and President of Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC), participated in the “AI Innovation and Impact” keynote forum at MWC Shanghai 2025 on June 19.

During MWC Shanghai 2025, the F5.5G All-Optical Industry Summit took place with the theme of "10 Gbps Broadband and All-Optical Premium Transmission for a Win-Win AI Era."

During MWC Shanghai 2025, Bob Chen, President of Huawei's Optical Business Product Line, delivered a keynote speech at the F5.5G All-Optical Industry Summit to share Huawei's continuous innovation in F5.5G all-optical networks from four dimensions.

Global Caribbean Network (GCN), a provider of wholesale capacity to a number of telcos in the Caribbean, has upgraded its existing subsea cable network using the Ekinops360 WDM platform with FlexRate technology from optical transport and network access specialist Ekinops.

Paratus Zimbabwe, a subsidiary of Paratus Group, a company that provides ICT network solutions, fibre and satellite connectivity that cross-link Africa and the world, has signed a major deal with PowerTel Communications, the ICT arm of Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) to launch a new high-capacity national fibre network across Zimbabwe.

A consortium of four subsea cable operators, Zain Omantel International (ZOI), PCCW Global, Sparkle, and Telecom Egypt, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on the construction of the Asia-Africa-Europe-2 (AAE-2) subsea cable system.

Service provider Telecom Fiji and technology company Google have reportedly signed a strategic agreement to design, build, and maintain a high-capacity terrestrial fibre optic link on the country’s main island, Viti Levu.

Telecoms newcomer Aquatel has signed an agreement with Aruba telco Setar and the Curaçao government to connect Curaçao to the planned CELIA subsea cable that will connect various Caribbean islands to the US.

Zain Omantel International (ZOI), a Middle Eastern regional wholesale business with access to more than 20 international submarine cables in the region, has announced a partnership that will enable it to create a digital telecommunications corridor stretching from the Middle East to Europe through Iraq.

Cirion Technologies, a provider of digital infrastructure and technology in Latin America, says it has expanded its network infrastructure with higher capacity, new metro access zones and new PoPs across the region.

Algeria Telecom has reportedly kicked off an online survey asking Algerians to identify areas that are not yet connected by fibre in preparation for planned FTTH rollouts next year.

Peru’s Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) has announced its collaboration with BELLA II, a research and education-focused project that will link the country regionally and with Europe via a high-capacity fibre-optic network.

Meta has announced it is partnering with Brazilian neutral network, digital infrastructure and data centre group V.tal to establish a new cable landing point for Meta’s Malbec subsea cable in Porto Alegre.

Nokia announced on Monday that South African ICT solutions provider Reflex will deploy its Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) solution to modernize and scale its network to enable faster onboarding of ISPs.

Nokia announced on Tuesday that Saudi Arabian telco stc group has successfully completed a proof-of-concept (PoC) for network slicing over a GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) infrastructure using its Altiplano Access Controller.

Sri Lankan service provider Dialog Axiata has announced the launch in the country of the IAX (India Asia Xpress) submarine cable system, which it describes as a significant part of its total investments in international connectivity infrastructure (said to be over US$100 million) aimed at bolstering Sri Lanka’s international network and future-proofing the country’s digital infrastructure.

Phase3 and Sonatel have activated a new terrestrial fibre route stretching 3,500km from Lagos, Nigeria, to Dakar, Senegal.

Technology vendor Nokia has announced that Cybernet, Pakistan’s leading fibre broadband provider, has chosen Nokia’s optical transport solution for its new long-haul optical fibre cable (OFC) network.

MTN’s digital infrastructure arm Bayobab announced on Tuesday it has completed a 260-km fibre route in Uganda from Malaba to Kampala that interconnects with Bayobab’s recently completed fibre route in Kenya from Malaba to Mombasa.

Polish telecoms operator Exatel said it is deploying pluggable optical transceivers from Ciena in its multi-vendor SDN infrastructure to improve capacity and performance for its national fibre-optic network.

Malaysian operator Maxis has unveiled plans to significantly expand its fibre network in the state of Penang, aiming to connect over 100,000 homes by 2027 in support of the government’s digital transformation agenda.

AzerTelecom and Kazakhtelecom said they have awarded a supervision services contract to subsea cable project management firm Pioneer Consulting to oversee construction of the Trans-Caspian Submarine Cable System connecting Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.